Welcome

Holiday discount

'Tis the season for celebrations and reflection... and discounts! As I often do, I am marking the occasion with a discount on my Mac apps, Dejal Simon and Time Out.

From now until the end of the year, you can get Simon, my handy website & server monitoring tool, for just $49.50 — half the regular price. (The upgrade from version 3 is also half price.)

You can also become a supporter of Time Out, my popular break reminder tool, for half the normal amount; just $1.49, $2.49, or $4.99, depending on the supporter duration. (Remember, any level will permanently unlock all of the current supporter rewards.)

The Mac App Store edition of Time Out is also discounted, though with slightly different prices.

This discount is automatically applied if you buy via the online store, or in the Mac App Store edition. Or you can enter the code "JOYTOALL" in the coupon field when purchasing in the direct edition. Don't delay!

Already have Simon and Time Out? Tell your friends and colleagues about it! I really appreciate any help spreading the word.

AppStories sponsorship

Last week I sponsored an episode of AppStories, a podcast discussing apps on macOS and iOS, brought to you by the fine folks at MacStories.

Welcome

Time Out 2.3 released

I mentioned in the previous newsletter that I was about to start work on Time Out version 2.3. As you may know by now, that did in fact eventuate, and it was recently released.

Version 2.3 focuses on enhancements to the postpone and skip options, including the ability to show the number of times each break has been postponed, skipped, and/or done (finished) today... and a much-requested feature, the ability to set daily limits on postponing and skipping. There's also a fun mini-pie-chart option.

Importantly, this update also includes a number of fixes for High Sierra compatibility, including a significant issue where the label and break background colors can unexpectedly become white.

I recommend updating to this version if you'll be installing High Sierra.

512 Pixels sponsorship

I don't do much advertising, but I occasionally like to do something to support people and sites that I like. One such is 512 Pixels, written by Stephen Hackett, who you may also know as one of the founders of the Relay FM podcast network.

This week I am sponsoring the 512 Pixels site, as a way to help support Stephen, and promote the new release of Dejal Time Out.

I'm pleased to announce the general release of version 2.3 of Time Out, my popular break reminder tool.

Version 2.3 focuses on enhancements to the postpone and skip options, including the ability to show the number of times each break has been postponed, skipped, and/or done (finished) today... and a much-requested feature, the ability to set daily limits on postponing and skipping. There's also a fun mini-pie-chart option.

Importantly, this update also includes a number of fixes for High Sierra compatibility, including a significant issue where the label and break background colors can unexpectedly become white.

I recommend updating to this version if you'll be installing High Sierra.

Read on for details.

Optional postpone and skip display and limits

Added an option to the Break Appearance preferences page to enable displaying the number of times a break has been postponed, skipped, and/or done each day, so you know how "good" you're being today.

Also added options to enable limiting the number of times it can be postponed and/or skipped each day. Useful if you find those buttons too hard to resist, but still want them there sometimes.

These features are available as rewards for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use these features, or try for an hour at a time.

If both Postpone buttons and the Skip button are hidden, the control panel is now smaller.

Here's what the "Show number of times..." option looks like during a break; notice the line of text below the buttons in the control panel. Also notice one of the new themes:

Option to show break labels as mini pie chart

Added an option to the Break Name preferences page to show the break label as a miniature pie chart of today's postponed/skipped/done counts.

The pie has an outline of the label color, with the postpones wedge as a lighter label color, skips as gray, and the wedge for done is shown as the label color.

Added a tooltip on the label icon that displays the same text as above.

This feature is also available as a reward for current supporters.

Here's the sidebar, with a pie option enabled for the Micro break, and the tooltip displayed:

Theme changes

Added a Cosmic Symbolism theme, as a bookmark to the Cosmic Symbolism website, similar to the other zooming ones. Kindly contributed by Justin Hall.

Added an Away From Desk theme (as seen in the screenshot above), that simply displays a message about being away from the desk for a RSI break. Kindly contributed by John Braine.

Updated the Muscles theme.

Removed the Emoji Zone theme, as the website that hosted it is no longer available.

Other improvements

Improved the accessibility prompt when starting the app for the first time, to not show the permissions alert until after the Setup Assistant has been closed, and only if the the suggestion of authorizing it wasn't done.

Removed the Post Tweet break action, as High Sierra unfortunately no longer includes built-in support for posting to Twitter.

I'm pleased to announce the first beta of an update to Time Out, my indispensable break reminder tool.

Version 2.3 focuses on enhancements to the postpone and skip options, including the ability to show the number of times each break has been postponed, skipped, and/or done (finished) today... and a much-requested feature, the ability to set daily limits on postponing and skipping. There's also a fun mini-pie-chart option.

Importantly, this update also includes a fix for an issue on High Sierra, where the label and break background colors can unexpectedly become white. I haven't noticed any other issues on macOS 10.13, but please let me know if you do find anything.

I recommend updating to this version if you'll be installing High Sierra.

Read the full release notes for details:

Optional postpone and skip display and limits

Added an option to the Break Appearance preferences page to enable displaying the number of times a break has been postponed, skipped, and/or done each day, so you know how "good" you're being today.

Also added options to enable limiting the number of times it can be postponed and/or skipped each day. Useful if you find those buttons too hard to resist, but still want them there sometimes.

These features are available as rewards for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use these features, or try for an hour at a time.

If both Postpone buttons and the Skip button are hidden, the control panel is now smaller.

Option to show break labels as mini pie chart

Added an option to the Break Name preferences page to show the break label as a miniture pie chart of today's postponed/skipped/done counts.

The pie has an outline of the label color, with the postpones wedge as a lighter label color, skips as gray, and the wedge for done is shown as the label color.

Added a tooltip on the label icon that displays the same text as above.

Theme changes

Removed the Emoji Zone theme, as the website that hosted it is no longer available.

Other improvements

Improved the accessibility prompt when starting the app for the first time, to not show the permissions alert until after the Setup Assistant has been closed, and only if the the suggestion of authorizing it wasn't done.

Fixed an issue with High Sierra, where the label and theme background colors could be unexpectedly changed to white. If affected, the colors will be reverted back to the defaults.

Want to try it?

If you are using the direct edition, you can change your Updates preferences to include beta releases, then use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

Welcome

Simon price eclipsed

Much of the US will experience a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. To celebrate this historic event, I thought I'd eclipse the price of Simon till the end of August. (Okay, a flimsy excuse for a discount, but why not — it's been quite a long time since the last one, even if not as long as since the last eclipse over the US, in 1918.)

This discount is automatically applied if you buy via the online store. Don't delay! Like the eclipse, this special only lasts a short time.

Already have Simon? Tell your friends and colleagues about it! I really appreciate any help spreading the word.

Setapp at 5 months

Recently TidBITS featured an article about Setapp, marking the five month period of Setapp's existence. I was quoted a number of times in this article, discussing my impressions of Simon in Setapp. Spoiler: I'm quite pleased with it so far. If you want lots of great apps (including Simon) for one low price, check out Setapp.

Time Out 2.3 coming soonish

I've been busy with consulting work of late, so work on Dejal apps has been rather slow. But I'll soon be getting back to it, as time allows, with several app updates and even new apps planned for the rest of the year.

The future plans are always subject to change, of course, but my current thought is to first work on an update to Time Out, to version 2.3. I have several planned enhancements, and some issues to fix... but if you have any requests, now would be a great time to let me know. Maybe your feature idea could make it into the next update!

Much of the US will experience a total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017. To celebrate this historic event, I thought I'd eclipse the price of Simon till the end of August. (Okay, a flimsy excuse for a discount, but why not — it's been quite a long time since the last one, even if not as long as since the last eclipse over the US, in 1918.)

This discount is automatically applied if you buy via the online store. Don't delay! Like the eclipse, this special only lasts a short time.

Welcome

Caboodle acquired

A very rare event occurred recently — one of my apps was acquired by another developer.

Caboodle, the app I first released over a decade ago to collect and manage snippets of text and attachments, now has a new owner.

As explained in the blog post announcing the acquisition, I haven't been able to devote enough time to this app for quite some time, so I finally decided that I had to find a better home for it; another developer that might have the ability to improve it further, and give it the attention it deserves.

By now all of the users of this app should have been contacted by the new owner, Before Dawn Solutions. Version 2 is a paid upgrade, but well worth it, including many great enhancements that I started and John completed.

BlogAssist and Tweeps discontinued

Another rare but big recent change was to discontinue a couple of my less popular apps.

This is something I don't like to do, and perhaps put off for years longer than I should... but sometimes apps just don't take off, or become redundant or less popular over time, and it becomes obvious that it isn't worth investing more time in them, when I could be working on apps that more people care about and use.

In this case, BlogAssist, my macOS app to help with HTML markup, and Tweeps, my iOS app to manage Twitter accounts, were the ones to fall to this fate.

BlogAssist is a handy app, that I still use myself (at least when writing blog posts), and although it has a small group of customers, it hasn't sold all that well, and has consequently been neglected. It is also pretty much feature-complete; there isn't really anything else I wanted to add to it. While I could have just made it free, I made the hard decision to stop work on it. I have kept the app available for download, though, so if you want to try it, you can do so. I'd be willing to provide a free license to anyone who requests one (so long as that doesn't become too burdensome).

Tweeps, on the other hand, was an idea to serve a brief need in Twitter's early days, but their site has improved over time, so it became less useful. I haven't really used the app for quite some time. And sales have been pretty much negligible. So it was a relatively easy decision to discontinue this app, even though I had put many hours into it in the past. Since the iOS App Store doesn't have a mechanism to hide away obsolete apps, I chose to remove it from sale, so it can't be downloaded anymore. The page on the Dejal site is still available, if you're curious about it.

It's always hard to stop work on apps, but it's better for the remaining apps, so I can spend my precious time working on them.

Time Out in Uneeqco bundle

Time Out, my popular break reminder tool (that is in no danger of discontinuation!) is included in a bundle at present.

For a short while, Time Out is available as part of a bundle from a relatively new organization, Uneeq Company. This is a "name your own price" bundle, so you can choose how much to pay for $643 worth of Mac apps.

Yellow Cottage Homestead

I mentioned my hobby business in my last newsletter. I don't want to bring it up every time, but I thought I'd give a brief update. On the blog you can see many cute pictures of new baby chicks (just a week old now!), plus our new bee hives, and much progress on the new chicken coop, where those chicks will soon live.

I have felt bad for some time that I haven't been able to give Caboodle the attention it deserves. I first wrote it way back in 2003, though the 1.0 release was in 2006. It has long suffered infrequent updates, mainly due to my spending most of my time on Simon, Time Out, and consulting projects. I was planning a major upgrade for years, and last year finally did some work on it, but again I couldn't devote enough time to actually finish it.

So I finally realized that I had to find a better home for Caboodle. It's a great app, relied on by many customers, so I didn't want to just discontinue it. I've known John Martyniak of Before Dawn Solutions for several years, so when I mentioned that I was looking for a new home for Caboodle, and he expressed interest, we fairly quickly came to an agreement.

Since then, he has been diligently working on finishing off version 2, and has now released the app under his banner.

I've been thinking about focus a lot lately... perhaps not surprising from the author of a break reminder tool.

One result of that is a reluctant and long-considered decision to discontinue a couple of my apps that aren't very popular, so I can spend more time on apps that people actually use.

So, I am here to announce that BlogAssist, my macOS menubar utility to do HTML markup, and Tweeps, my iOS app to manage Twitter accounts, have now been discontinued.

BlogAssist was first released back in 2003, and reached version 2.4 in 2012, and was last updated to version 2.4.1 over a year ago. (Release notes.)

Tweeps was introduced in 2010, and reached version 3.3 in 2014. (Release notes.)

BlogAssist is still available for download, for anyone still using it, but is no longer supported and will not receive any updates. New users are welcome to use it if desired, too. It has a license requirement (with a free trial), but I'd be willing to provide a free license to anyone who requests one.

Tweeps is no longer available for download, since the App Store doesn't really have an area for legacy apps. You can see what it looked like on the product page, if you're curious.

For a short while, Time Out is available as part of a bundle from a relatively new organization, Uneeq Company. This is a "name your own price" bundle, so you can choose how much to pay for $643 worth of Mac apps.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I wanted to remind everyone of BundleHunt, a "choose your own bundle" collection of great apps, which includes Simon, my pro tool to monitor websites and servers for changes or failures.

This bundle is coming to an end soon, so it's your last chance to get Simon and 6 other apps for just $19.99. Choose from 49 premium apps, including Typinator, MacJournal, WinZip, and more. You can get 7 apps for less than quarter the regular price of just Simon!

If you already have Simon, this is a great opportunity to get your friends or colleagues hooked on its benefits for a very low cost. I'd appreciate any help in spreading the word, and if you use this link they'll know you came from here.

Time Out 2: a year later

This month marked the one year anniversary of Time Out 2! To celebrate, I wrote a blog post, complete with pie charts, providing information on how the downloads and supporter model have gone over the past year.

Simon 4.2.2 released

Note that it is still available as part of BundleHunt too, for a limited time. Tell your friends!

Yellow Cottage Homestead

In addition to Dejal apps and Dejal consulting, my wife and I also have a hobby business called Yellow Cottage Homestead, LLC, where we raise chickens for eggs (as seen in my Chicken GIFs sticker pack!), make apple cider, grow lavender for various products, and soon will keep bees for honey, on our five acres.

About a month ago I started a blog for the homestead, where I'm posting every day or two about projects around the place. I recently had some posts about designing and building wooden potato planters, and there have been posts about snow and about chickens, but most of the posts have been about building a second chicken coop, which I've just started.

Over the coming weeks you can expect many more posts about building progress, plus in May we'll be getting a dozen baby chicks (hopefully I'll have the coop ready by then!), plus will be setting up a couple of bee hives, and many other projects. Stay tuned!

I've just released a tiny update to Time Out, to fix a couple of issues.

Version 2.2.1 includes a fix for scheduling issue, where it was incorrectly adding the sleep duration to the due time after waking from sleep. It also includes a fix for breaks set to a frequency of daily (or longer) and with an Available time range set, where it was pushing the due time out by a day.

If you are using the Mac App Store edition, you can update via the App Store app once it has been approved (maybe later today or tomorrow).

If you are using the direct edition, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

I'm pleased to announce the general release of version 2.2 of Time Out, my popular break reminder tool.

The major new feature of version 2.2 is the new Activity page. It also includes new themes and theme features, a View menu for easier navigation, and several other improvements. Read on for details.

Optionally track breaks and/or app usage via a new Activity feature

Added an "Activity" item in the sidebar, that optionally shows a chart of activity, including breaks you've taken, apps you've used, and time away from the Mac.

Activity tracking is off by default, for privacy reasons. You can enable it via a button at the top of the Activity page, which displays a menu with options to Track Breaks, Track Apps, and clear the recorded activity.

On the right-hand side of the Activity page is a slider to zoom the scale; you can also pinch to zoom on a trackpad. The scale goes from 1 day to 1 minute, or even to individual activity items.

Each line of the activity chart shows the activity grouped together for the scale time period, arranged with breaks before apps, and the longest first. For example, if at a 15 minute scale, it might show 5 minutes of a break, 5 minutes of Safari usage, 3 minutes of Mail, 2 minutes of natural breaks (idle).

Hover over an activity in the chart to see a tooltip with the break or app name, how many times it occurred in this time period, and how long for.

Recorded activity lives on your Mac, and isn't shared with anyone else.

This feature is available as a reward for current supporters. If you were a supporter in the past, but it has expired, you can extend your supporter status to use this feature. As with other supporter rewards, you can also try it for an hour at a time.

More themes

Added a "Muscles" theme, contributed by "saltymouse", to show a random exercise (from a customizable list) with reps to do during breaks.

Added a "GiphyStretch" theme, contributed by Sean Carey of Giphy, to show a series of stretching GIFs.

Added a "GiphyPuppies" theme, also contributed by Sean Carey, to show a series of puppy GIFs.

Break theme improvements

Extended the break theme JavaScript to support a window.webkit.messageHandlers.getTimeOutConfig.postMessage('') message to get a JSON of the break configuration. It will call back to a timeOutConfig(json) function, passing the JSON. Properties include format (the JSON format, initially 1), identifier (the break's unique identifier), name (the break's name), durationSeconds (the break duration expressed in seconds), durationString (e.g. "10 minutes"), frequencySeconds (the frequency in seconds), frequencyString (e.g. "1 hour"), beginningSeconds (the fade-in time), endingSeconds (the fade-out time).

Also extended the JavaScript to support a window.webkit.messageHandlers.getTimeOutState.postMessage('') message, to get a JSON of the break state information. It will call back to a timeOutState(json) function, passing the JSON. Properties include format (e.g. 1), nextDue (e.g. an ISO date like "2016-09-29T23:27:51Z"), lastStarted, lastDone, lastDeferred (also dates), lastPhase (e.g. done, skipped, or postponed), and currentPhase (e.g. pending, starting, started, or finishing).

Let me know if you'd like any other properties for these to help drive your custom themes.

Fixed an issue where choosing None for the break theme would revert back to the default Icon theme, even for supporters (this is expected for non-supporters).

Break action improvements

On the Actions page, renamed After Finish to After Done, to be consistent with other uses ("finish" is when the break is expected to end, "done" is after it has actually successfully completed, as opposed to other ends of the break like "skip" or "postpone").

Added a View menu

Added a View menu to the menu bar, to enable easier navigation of the preference pages (the keyboard shortcuts can still be used when the menu bar is hidden).

Other improvements

Added an alert when turning on the option to automatically start Time Out, if the app isn't in the Applications folder.

When using a MacBook Pro with integrated and discrete GPUs, now attempts to remain using the integrated GPU, to save battery.

Now remembers the visibility state of the Preferences window. If you close it, it will remain closed when you next start the app, or if you leave it open, it will re-open. The window will always display when later switching to the app, when the Dock icon is shown.

Improved the scheduler's idle handling to cope with macOS calling the timer less frequently than requested (as a power-saving measure).

Added a separate Exclusions preference to skip breaks when the Mac display is asleep (in addition to the preference to skip during the screensaver).

Moved the Learn More button on the Support Time Out page, to make it more discoverable.

Get it now!

If you are using the Mac App Store edition, you can update via the App Store app.

If you are using the direct edition, you can use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the general release of Time Out version 2.0.

One month after that release, I wrote a blog post that provided some stats on how the supporter model was going at the time.

I thought I'd take this opportunity to follow up on that.

A year after release, the supporter model is still working well. If you're not familiar, the basic idea is that someone can download Time Out and use it for free, but some features only work for an hour at a time, as often as they like. So they can try all of the functionality, at their own pace, and decide if the advanced features are useful to them. If so, they can become a supporter for three, six, or twelve months. This permanently unlocks all of the current features as a reward. Even when the supporter period expires, those features remain fully available. So they can choose to extend their supporter status, or just keep using the app without paying any more. Of course, I hope that people do renew, to help fund ongoing sustainable development.

At present, about 9% of people who download Time Out end up purchasing one of the supporter options... which is a reasonable "conversion rate", which can often average more like 5% for normal trial apps. I feel pretty comfortable with that. But I'm also happy that people who choose not to become a supporter can still use a great break reminder tool to help them get or stay healthy.

Looking at the edition of Time Out available on the Dejal website, over the past year almost half of people chose the 3-month supporter option, at 48%, while a good number, 35%, chose the 12-month option, with relatively few choosing the middle 6-month supporter option:

Compare that to the Mac App Store edition, almost two thirds chose the 3-month supporter option, but the 6-month one was almost the same, and only a quarter chose the 12-month option:

Looking at both editions combined, you can see that most of the purchases were through the Mac App Store, though the direct edition isn't too far behind:

That was the number of purchases (units). In terms of money, unsurprisingly the 12-month supporter option goes a lot further, at 61% for direct sales. The 3-month option still beats 6-month, due to the volume of purchases, but not by as big a margin:

For the Mac App Store, the picture is similar, but not quite so favorable for the 12-month option, at slightly less than half the income, and a bigger slice of the pie for 3-month:

Again, combining them into one chart, you can see that it's pretty much neck-and-neck for direct vs Mac App Store, due to the larger slice of the pie that Apple takes:

I hope this snapshot of one year of Time Out was interesting. Overall, I think the supporter model is going well. I'm pleased to see many people who purchased 3- or 6-month supporter options choosing to extend their support, just because they appreciate the help it provides them, or want to help support further development.

Time Out continues to improve; just today I released another beta of version 2.2, which includes a great new activity feature and more. The continuing support of people like you is what makes that possible.

Added a View menu to the menu bar, to enable easier navigation of the preference pages (the keyboard shortcuts can still be used when the menu bar is hidden).

Added an alert when turning on the option to automatically start Time Out, if the app isn't in the Applications folder.

When using a MacBook Pro with integrated and discrete GPUs, now attempts to remain using the integrated GPU, to save battery.

Now remembers the visibility state of the Preferences window. If you close it, it will remain closed when you next start the app, or if you leave it open, it will re-open. The window will always display when later switching to the app, when the Dock icon is shown.

Again, the major new feature in version 2.2 is the Activity page, where you can see what breaks you've taken (and for how long), and what apps you've used, if you wish.

Want to try it?

If you are using the direct edition, you can change your Updates preferences to include beta releases, then use the Check for Updates feature in the app to update.

Simon in BundleHunt

After the success with Caboodle a few months ago, BundleHunt asked if I'd like to include Simon in their latest bundle, featured near the top, to which I agreed. This is a rare opportunity to get Simon, my pro tool to monitor websites and servers, for a significant discount. Normally $99 for just the app, for a limited time you can get Simon and six other premium apps for only $19.99.

Speaking of Simon, it has been having good success as part of Setapp too; the "Netflix of apps", lots of quality apps for a low monthly subscription. Check it out if you haven't already.

Dejal Forums now require moderation

I've had a bunch of problems with the Dejal Forums of late, first with account creation not working, then a lot of spam postings every day. To combat that, I added moderation of posts. So now, when you post something to a forum, it isn't publicly visible initially, but I will see it within hours and approve for publishing, then immediately reply if needed. One nice benefit of this is that you'll get an email when the post is published, which will let you know that a reply will likely be forthcoming shortly thereafter.

I've still had the flood of spam, but at least it hasn't been publicly visible anymore. And since I've been blocking the spammer accounts, the volume has dropped off, perhaps as they realized they were wasting their time. Hopefully that problem will go away.

Long-term, I'm debating whether or not the forums are worthwhile, since most people prefer to contact me privately, and some site changes I want to do one day would be easier if I didn't have the complication of user accounts. If you want them to continue, make use of them!